1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate treatment system, a substrate treatment method, and a computer readable storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a photolithography process in a manufacturing process of a semiconductor device, for example, a resist coating treatment of applying a resist solution, for example, to a wafer, a heat treatment of drying the resist solution (pre-baking treatment), a heat treatment of accelerating chemical reaction in the resist film after the resist film is exposed to a predetermined pattern (post exposure-baking treatment), a developing treatment of developing the resist film, a heat treatment of heating the wafer after the developing treatment, and so on are performed in order, to thereby form a predetermined resist pattern on the wafer.
A series of the above-described wafer treatments is sequentially performed in a coating and developing treatment system incorporating a resist coating treatment apparatus for performing the resist coating treatment, a developing treatment apparatus for performing the developing treatment, heat treatment apparatuses for performing the above-described various kinds of heat treatments, a transfer unit for performing transfer of the wafer between the treatment apparatuses.
The above-described coating and developing treatment system incorporates a plurality of the above-described resist coating apparatuses, developing treatment apparatuses, and heat treatment apparatuses respectively, in order to improve the throughput of the wafer treatment. At the time when performing the wafer treatment in the coating and developing treatment system, a plurality of wafers are divided into a plurality of treatment apparatuses which perform the same treatment, in each of the treatment steps, so that the plurality of wafers are treated in parallel by those treatment apparatuses during the same time (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open. No. 2001-85323).
However, where the plurality of wafers are divided into the plurality of treatment apparatuses as described above so that the wafers are treated in parallel, there are individual differences between the treatment apparatuses, thus causing variation in the state of the wafer after the treatment depending on the treatment apparatus performing the treatment. For example, the film thickness of the resist solution varies in the case of the resist coating treatment, and the shape and dimension of the resist film after development varies in the developing treatment. Besides, the thermal history varies in the case of the heat treatment.
In addition, even in the case of the treatment apparatuses for performing the same kind of treatment, the transfer route and the transfer time of the wafer vary depending on the installation position of the treatment apparatus. This also affects the state of the wafer after the treatment.
As described above, when the wafers are divided into the plurality of treatment apparatuses and treated in parallel, the treatment states in the resist coating treatment, the developing treatment, the heat treatment and so on vary between the wafers to cause variation in the dimension of the finally formed resist pattern.